History Film / ETTheExtraTerrestrial

* SwissCheeseSecurity: The US government manages to get their hands on an alien lifeform, yet two kids are able to hi-jacked the van with the priceless load inside.

[[quoteright:283:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/etextraterrestrial-henrythomas.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:283: [[TagLine He's afraid, he's totally alone, and he's 3 million lightyears from home.]]]]

** Very near the beginning of the film as the camera shows some of the specimens E.T.'s people have collected in their ship, one of them looks something like a big tree with a man's face on it. As the camera pans past him, if you're watching closely (you may have to use the slow-play button or run it a couple of times to catch this), you can see his lips move as he lets out an audible sigh!

* {{Bowdlerise}}: For the 2002 special edition, the guns of the cops at the end of the film were digitally replaced by CGI walkie-talkies (Spielberg, now a father himself, felt the shotguns could have been too frightening for his children) and a line spoken by Mary commenting about Michael's Halloween costume had the word "terrorist" changed to "hippie." When the film eventually was released on DVD, the initial run saw both the 2002 release and the original theatrical cut packaged together in one set.

[[caption-width-right:283: He's afraid, he's totally alone and he's 3 million lightyears from home.]]

Down in that suburb live Elliott, his older brother Michael, and his little sister Gertrude (played by a very young Creator/DrewBarrymore), the products of a broken home with an overworked mom named Mary ([[DisappearedDad the dad is absent]]). Over the course of a few days, lonely Elliott encounters the stranded alien and lures it to his house with Reese's Pieces, offering it shelter and naming it E.T.

* EverytownAmerica: While the town Elliot live in is never mentioned, he points to Northern California on a map when showing E.T. where they live. (The actual house is in the L.A. neighborhood of Tujunga at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.)

Down in that suburb live Elliott, his older brother Michael, and his little sister [[Creator/DrewBarrymore Gertrude]], the products of a broken home with an overworked mom named Mary ([[DisappearedDad the dad is absent]]). Over the course of a few days, lonely Elliott encounters the stranded alien and lures it to his house with Reese's Pieces, offering it shelter and naming it E.T.

* AssholeVictim

''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' is perhaps Creator/StevenSpielberg's signature film. By the end of its initial theatrical run (which ran from early June of 1982 into early June of 1983), it had unseated ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' as the highest-grossing film of all time to date. Music/JohnWilliams' score, flying bicycles, and an UglyCute alien hero are just the tip of the iceberg here.

* ParentalSubstitute: Elliott to E.T. Though you could also interpret it as being the other way around.

* CornerOfWoo: While E.T. is dying on the operating table, Michael retreats into the walk-in closet upstairs and assumes this pose.

* LongingLooks: The blond girl in Elliot's class seems to have a crush on him as she keeps sending longing looks his way.

A group of aliens are in a forest on Earth, not far from a suburb, exploring and collecting plant samples. They are forced to leave in a hurry when alien-seeking scientists arrive on the scene, and one of them is not on the ship when it takes off...

* AllThereInTheManual: E.T.'s backstory. He's a member of a low grade HiveMind, essentially a sentient drone: In some ways his intelligence is very simple and childlike, in others, very sophisticated, as befitting field crew. When he is cut off from his group mind, his body, not equipped to handle isolation, begins to break down, hastened by Earth's very high gravity. His telepathic bond with Elliott slows the process, but also makes him an accidental PowerParasite, draining Elliott. When his ship gets in range, he automatically reconnects with the network, which immediately halts the decay and heals him.

* BleepDammit: When Michael returns home during Elliot and E.T.'s first day together and looks into the fridge, he sings to himself, "Nothin' but health shit..." The "shit" is silenced out in the 20th anniversary version, but every other utterance of the word was left untouched.

* HopeSpot: After being able to elude the cop cars, one of Michael's friends (Tyler) cheers "We made it!" [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle only for a couple dozen FBI agents to burst back onto the scene]].

* MeaningfulEcho: Because E.T. parrots what others say, there are a good deal of these by the end, such as "I'll be right here."

* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: E.T. hides himself amongst toys to avoid detection.

* RecurringCameraShot: The iconic shot of Elliot's bike flying across the moon is actually repeated later as the gang are going to meet E.T.'s ship, the bikes shown flying across the setting sun, though this shot is considerably less known.

*** Also, when the government agents invade Elliot's house, the astronauts get a [[VaderBreath well known breath]].

** Some sources say it was Creator/DrewBarrymore who asked for the guns to be edited out.
* ABoyAndHisX: A boy and his marooned alien botanist.

** Also in TheBookOfTheFilm by William Kotzwinkle, it's revealed that E.T. is [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld ten million years old.]]

* TheRival: ''Film/{{The Thing|1982}}'' was this to ''E.T.'', one of the reasons it didn't get any notice until VHS and cable, was because many people watching ''E.T.'' didn't like the idea of an evil alien.

** If you look closely in the first scene with any dialogue, that's ''cigarette smoke'' floating around the boys. Since Mary obviously wouldn't encourage any teen smoking in her house, the cigarette must have been hers. That she's also got a pack of [[ProductPlacement Coors]] in her fridge suggests her split with her husband has lately had her [[DrowningMySorrows taking up some bad habits]] off-screen.

** Exactly what the two guys in the plastic tunnel segment yell at Elliot after the van ditches them [[TheUnintelligible we may never know]], but it can't have been anything nice.